Patricia was an 86-year-old widow whose son abandoned her years ago to be with his girlfriend. After placing herself in an old age home, she is shocked to see her prodigal son return.

At 86 years old, Patricia was a retired widow who lived alone. She hated living alone and had been raising money for the past 15 years to move into a nursing home and be part of a family and community again. Her son had left her to be with his then-girlfriend many years ago, and she had been alone since.

She finally moved into a nursing home, and it was everything she had hoped for and more. Patricia made numerous friends, from the staff to the residents, and was popular in the nursing home. She was involved in various activities like mini golf and race walking.

Patricia was happy to be in the tight-knit community she had come to call a family. However, she often missed her own family and spent some days just reviewing her old photo albums. Her son, Arnold, had made her a beautiful painting when he was still a little boy.

Patricia stuck it on her wardrobe door and often stared at it for hours every morning. It was one of her most prized possessions and made her think of a better time for Patricia and her family.

“He moved into the neighborhood a few days ago, but he has been volunteering here for almost two weeks. Surprisingly, you guys share a surname. What are the chances of that, huh?”

One day, Patricia was playing chess with one of the nurses, Agnus. This had become a daily afternoon routine for them. Patricia would win every time, that is, unless Patricia let her win. She would always tell Agnus that losses were great for building resilience.

“Checkmate!” Agnus said, playing the winning piece. Patricia just looked back at her with a sly smirk.

“You let me win again, didn’t you?” Agnus asked.

“Me? No! That was all you. You beat me fair and square, I promise,” Patricia replied.

“Hmm-mmm… The chances of that happening are one in a million. Speaking of chances, you see that man over there?” Agnus said, pointing to a rugged man sitting on the other side of the room.

Patricia looked over to the man, squinting her eyes, trying to see him better. After 86 years of usage, her eyesight wasn’t in the best of conditions. However, she felt she knew the man from the little she could see. Besides what she could see with her eyes, it was more of a feeling deep in her core.

“He moved into the neighborhood a few days ago, but he has been volunteering here for almost two weeks. Surprisingly, you guys share a surname. What are the chances of that, huh?” Agnus asked.

A chill went down Patricia’s spine as Agnus spoke. It was beginning to make sense. But she had to be sure, so she asked, “What’s his name?”

“I believe his name is Arnold,” Agnus said, and as she said that name, Patricia instantly turned pale.

“Are you okay, Patricia?” Agnus asked, taken aback by her friend’s sudden change of demeanor.

“Uhm… I’ll be fine. I think I just need to lie down for a bit, that’s all. I’ll see you later, dear,” Patricia said, leaving for her bedroom.

When she got to her room she instantly opened up her photo album and in it was a picture of the same man, but younger. Patricia started to weep as the memories began to flood in.

Patricia had her son, Arnold, when she was 20. Her husband passed away in a car accident while Patricia was still pregnant with Arnold. So, Patricia had raised Arnold all on her own.

Up until his later teen years, the boy and his mother were inseparable. It had always been the two of them against the world. They had a deep and beautiful bond. However, when Arnold turned 20, he met a girl, Jane, and fell in love with her.

“Arnold, I know this may be hard to accept, but Jane isn’t the person she presents herself as. You can do so much better, my child. She is a liar.”

Arnold soon decided that he would move out of his mother’s house and move in with Jane. Patricia was heartbroken that her child was leaving her, but she respected his decision and understood that it was a natural progression of life. After all, she had Arnold when she was only 20.

Arnold invited his mother to meet Jane over dinner one day, and things took a left turn pretty quickly. Patricia noticed that Jane throughout the night, was fighting for Arnold’s attention the whole time. Patricia was by no means intimidated by the girl, she was the woman her son had chosen to be with, and all she wanted to do was get to know her a bit better.

However, she realized that Jane was trying to turn her son against her and started to worry for her son. After their dinner, Jane lied to Arnold and told him that his mother had tried to bribe her to stay away from Arnold. Jane realized that Patricia had seen through Jane and her impure intentions with her son.

Arnold confronted his mother, but when she tried to explain that she had never even spoken to Jane since the dinner, he didn’t believe her.

“Arnold, I know this may be hard to accept, but Jane isn’t the person she presents herself as. You can do so much better, my child. She is a liar,” Patricia said regretfully.

“No, mom. You’re the liar! Jane has had my back all this time, but you can’t accept her,” Arnold lashed out.

“Oh! And I haven’t had your back?” Patricia responded.

“If you did, you wouldn’t have offered her money to leave me!” Arnold retorted.

“Are you deaf, Arnold? I never gave that girl money! But I am telling you now that she is nothing but trouble! If you continue with her, you will get hurt, my child,” Patricia said.

Those were the last words she spoke to her son. He left that day and distanced himself from her completely. She tried calling, but he didn’t answer her calls. He later switched numbers and moved to another state.

And now, as Patricia sat there looking at her son’s picture, she was faced with the reality that he was in the next room. This was her last opportunity to make things right with her only child, and the thought of failure scared her to the core.

She finally mustered up the courage and approached Arnold, simply saying, “Hi, Arnold. It’s me, your mother.” Arnold instantly broke into tears.

“I know, mom,” Arnold confessed in a weeping mess. Patricia embraced him in a hug as he began to explain his story.

“I tracked you down and moved here to be closer to you and to apologize for everything… But I was afraid. I’m so sorry, mom. You were right about Jane,” Arnold said.

Arnold explained the events of his life after leaving his mother. Arnold and Jane left for another state and got married. She coerced Arnold into changing his number and cutting contact with his mother, saying she would always try to keep them apart and that it was time for Arnold to be his own man.

And then, several years ago, Jane left Arnold for another man.

She took half of his business and his properties. Arnold was left alone and heartbroken. He had cut off all his family for Jane, only for her to later abandon him.

After all these years of being separated from his mother, he was afraid to return to her, although he deeply yearned to. Everyone had left him. He had even moved far from his friends for Jane, but she had left him in a blink of an eye.

Arnold eventually sold everything he had and gave most of the proceeds to charity. He finally found the courage to return home to his mother, but when he got there, she no longer lived there. After a thorough investigation, he learned that she had moved into a nursing home in the country.

Arnold then bought a small cottage near the nursing home. He had planned on approaching his mother the moment he got to the nursing home. However, when he saw his mother, he froze. H was too scared. He decided he would volunteer to be around but keep his distance. Once he finally found the courage, he would talk to her.

“Mom, I’m so sorry. I thought she was the one, and I lost track of everything that was important to me in pursuite of her. Please find it in your heart to forgive me,” Arnold said, after telling Patricia his story.

Patricia was heartbroken to hear all that her son had gone through. Arnold, on the other hand, feared the “I told you so” conversation that was sure to come up. He was ashamed of his actions, and as much as he had wanted to reconcile with his mother, he had dreaded this moment for a long time.

“Oh, my dear Arnold,” Patricia said, gently caressing his hair. Then she looked at him around the abdomen in horror. “Why aren’t you wearing a jacket? It’s freezing cold outside. I even heard you coughing earlier. Let me get you a blanket, then we can have some tea and laughs just like the old times,” Patricia said warmly.

Arnold was taken aback by his mother’s kindness. He expected her to lash out at him for not listening to her.

“You’re amazing, mom. I don’t deserve you,” Arnold said emotionally.

“Oh, my child. You will always deserve me. Now come, before you get sick,” Patricia said, beckoning Arnold to her room.

As Patricia placed the blanket around her son, she suddenly hugged him. Squeezing him tightly as she burst into tears. They sat there in each other’s arms for almost an hour straight, weeping for all the years lost.

In his mother’s arms, Arnold felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time. He felt needed and loved. He felt like a 10-year-old boy again, and it was the most peace he had experienced in years.

Since then, Patricia and Arnold were just as inseparable as they had been all those years back. It was just the two of them against the world again. Everyone was happy for them, and they admired their relationship.

Arnold eventually moved Patricia into the cottage he had bought, and they lived together. Patricia could still hang out with her friends at the nursing home whenever she wanted, but she also had her own space. On the other hand, Arnold was just glad to be home where his heart always truly was. And having brushed up on his painting skills over the years, he made his mother another painting which she cherished dearly.

What can we learn from this story?

Trust a mother’s intuition. If Arnold had trusted his mother’s feelings about Jane, he might have saved himself much pain in the long run.
The bond and love between mother and child are powerful. And kindness is better than holding grudges. Arnold abandoned his mother’s love to pursue someone who didn’t have his best interest. However, in the end, his mother did not hold it against him; she simply showed him he was loved.

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